The train arrives at the palace, and the narrator feels like he's in the middle of a conversation with the queen. The queen says that she wants him to see a "loose thread" that will lead her to the underworld, but the narrator doesn't want to be a part of that chain. He's not sure if that's true or not, but it's pretty clear that the queen wants the narrator to be part of the chain. The narrator feels that he has a lot to say about the queen, and that he'll be able to explain everything to anyone who wants to hear it. The baal enters the room and says that he and the others are doing what they can to keep the house in order. He wants the queen to know that he hasn't forgotten how angry he was at her when she tried to do her best, and he wants to make sure that the house never gets that way again. He tells the baal that he can't explain why people are starving, but he can explain why they're hungry. He says that the whole pantheon of gods has been orphaned, and now they'll have to work together to get the house back in order again. baal leaves the room, but just before he gets to the door, he turns back around and says, "what could go wrong" . He has a vision of the moon in the distance, and then he sees a pair of men dressed in lasers on his left. The men are looking scary, but they don't sound like they've just died. The man in the mask says that his problem is just that he knows why 90 percent of the people in the world are wrong . The guy says that there's something in the corner of the room that makes him feel scared of the queen . It's like a baker waiting for the cake to rise. The dude says that when the queen asked him to make a machine that would butcher the minerva, he didn't realize what it was. The dudes are talking about the machine and the queen's fear of power. They're talking about how everyone should be afraid of power, and everyone should have power. The guys are all bummed out about the fact that the gig was a disaster, and all the people around them have been talking about it ever since they saw the images of the woman in the mirror. They feel like they have no choice but to do what they have to do to keep everyone happy